“SCLEROTIC companies abound in Europe,” says Christer Gardell, co-founder and managing partner of Cevian Capital, an activist hedge fund based in Sweden. That is an uncommonly pugnacious statement for a firm that operates behind the scenes and uses public pressure as a last resort. Unlike its louder American peers, such as Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square, Paul Singer’s Elliott Management or Dan Loeb’s Third Point, Cevian has never written a pointed open letter to a chief executive or waged a proxy battle (although Carl Icahn, an activist who has been known to call bosses “morons”, is one of its investors).

Its calm approach seems to suit corporate Europe. Cevian is the region’s largest activist fund, and one of the world’s biggest, with over $15.4bn in assets. It was founded by Mr Gardell and Lars Forberg in Stockholm in 2002; both still run it. Its “constructive” activism, focusing on only a dozen companies at a…Continue reading
Source: Business and Finance